Post by armoredopossum in Buck Naked jam comments - itch.io

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armoredopossum58 days ago

Yeahhhh I'm sorry man, this didn't really work for me either. I don't think this was a disaster or anything, but the tone is so uneven and inconsistent that I'm not sure what it wants to be, and I feel like the VN doesn't know what it wants to be either.

I'll explain what I mean once I get to writing, but I'll just go ahead and jump in, so spoilers ahead.

First off, I want to acknowledge that the presentation here is actually pretty good. Yes, you're using stock jam assets and sounds but I think you do so very effectively, and I appreciate the effort in moving them around, even for short effects like moving a sprite up and down to convey laughter. These are minor details, but I think there's so much emphasis on the writing in the comments that the presentation is getting lost along the way, and I really do think you deserve credit for that. Same goes for the mechanics of the writing - no typos or other errors that I can remember, and the attention to detail there is duly noted.

Moving onto the writing itself, your response to my topline comment might be "It's a story about naked bucks, what more do you want?" but I never felt like that was really all there was to it.

Early on, we get double entendres like "Will you be able to handle a huge load on your back?" and metahumor (or at least metahumor-adjacent) lines like "Damn! What is it with all the hot deer I keep running into this week?" that suggest this is supposed to be satirical and silly, but there are also attempts at (apparently; maybe they're supposed to be part of the joke and I'm missing it) serious discussions about nudism and the severe lasting psychological impacts of nudism-fetish-COVID on the protagonist. Ultimately, the jokes never feel consistent enough for it to feel like a comedy and the worldbuilding is so whack that I can't take the serious parts, well, seriously either.

Like, let's touch on worldbuilding for a bit. Purkka already went into this and I don't want to be too redundant, but let's focus on the following line: "It seems like all anyone wants to talk about nowadays is the latest fashion."

This seems like an attempted jab at consumerism, but the commentary feels half-baked because it, and most of the rest of the VN, presumes that modesty is the only reason people wear clothing. Like, if people did readopt clothing that fast, maybe it's not just because they're chasing shallow trends, but rather that they don't want to be freezing or that they want to wear medical PPE or tell who's on which team in a basketball game. There's a bit in the "debate" about clothing as individual expression, but it seems like we're ignoring all the practical uses of clothing.

There's plenty more about the "lore" that doesn't make sense too. Besides just 20 years being way too short for clothing to be a lost concept, like, why are there no roads leading to the former town? How'd they even get all the clothes there without trucks and stuff? Razing the town for the dump makes no sense, and neither does its current physical layout - why would there be a random chimney at person-height but no other rubble or remains besides a concrete foundation? Why put soil over a concrete foundation at all? How on earth is there running water at Devon's house? If Devon never had the disease, why doesn't he have regular blankets? Does anyone have regular blankets? What about sheets and towels? Some of the stuff about the town might be intended to be tongue-in-cheek, but it's not really written in a way that makes that clear and not just an oversight.

Again, you might say that none of this is the point and it's not that deep, but the world is on such shaky ground that it makes the drama hard to buy into. To that end, we really don't get all that much about our leads either. They both like being naked (one out of necessity and severe lingering trauma) and they both like paw play and that's... pretty much it. Like, we're supposed to buy into this happy ending with Cliff going to live with Devon, but I have no idea if they have anything else in common or if they'll even like each other after a couple days. You can only give so many footjobs before you gotta find something else to talk about.

It seems like you had fun making this and I don't want to take that away from you. To be honest, this is one of many times where I wish I could just turn my brain off and not think about the global implications of a setup, but unfortunately this didn't quite land for me.

Kentaro Manedwuff56 days ago (2 edits)

Valid criticism, all. But I'd like to clarify some objections you had about the lore. I imagined this taking place before the age of cars, so I imagined that everything was taken over on wagons on trails which were then abandoned and left to the elements for decades. Also, as for the layout of the town, I also imagined that there's more rubble than just a chimney and a concrete foundation, but most of it is just not recognizable as anything other than a bunch of random rock piles. As someone who has friends who were victims of the California wildfires, this is actually something I've witnessed firsthand. Also, given the exactly strict geographical attributes required for a landfill (I studied a little bit about this), it's not totally unreasonable that a former town (geographically flat with compacted soil) is the only place nearby that also meets the requirements for a landfill.

Still though, some of this I felt was conveyed clearly enough, but on retrospect, could possibly have been explained better. For example, why put soil over a concrete foundation? Not only do you dump soil in a landfill, but that's also something that happens naturally over 20 years. I figured that was something logical enough that didn't merit explanation. Another thing that I felt was logical was having Devon have running water. To clarify, I imagine that he has a water tank on the top of his cabin that supplies him with water that actually flows (just because he has running water it doesn't mean the water is highly pressurized). Anyway, I did also mention that certain fabrics do exist in this world, but that none of them were suitable for making clothes. To clarify, either because they're too uncomfortable, don't drape well or can't be produced in large enough quality.

Anyway, while I tried to think about this world more than what actually made it into this VN, with some things I did explain and some things I felt were obvious enough not to explain, I do admit that a lot of it could have been explained better, and I'll make sure to do this for next time.

Kentaro Manedwuff56 days ago (2 edits)

Also, as for the attempted jab at consumerism that you commented about, I'd like to clarify that it wasn't meant as a jab at all. I didn't even mean for this VN to be anti-clothing at all. In fact, I was a little worried that I was being a little too pro-clothing since every time Cliff brings up a good reason for wearing clothes, all Devon answers with is "Well, that's stupid." So it wasn't meant to be commentary on consumerism or anything, it's simply not what Cliff want out of life and it's Cliff realizing what he does want, which is just someone who's willing to listen to him. I usually try to write stories with more complexity, but due to the constraints of this jam, I really couldn't convey a message more complex than "It's good to be around people who understand you!" but that's the way the story went.

armoredopossum55 days ago (1 edit)

Thanks for the detailed response! It's always nice to have additional insight into the design process whether things worked or not.

As you say, I think some of these things could have been conveyed a bit more cleanly. I certainly didn't get the feeling that we were pre-20th century in the setting; the architecture, fashion (~~including the backpack, which looks very modern~~ Edit: disregard - I re-downloaded to double check and it's less modern than I remembered), speaking mannerisms, etc. didn't give any indication that this was supposed to take place significantly outside of current times. As for the state of clothing dump, if you were trying to create an image of a ruined town, there are fairly simple details you could add to do that, like having Cliff trip over a pile of rubble, or noticing non-clothing debris jutting out from the clothing and wondering why it's there.

Ultimately, I feel like the worldbuilding is set up to support individual scenes rather than the scenes taking place in a cohesively built world. I feel like you wanted it to be longer than 20 years of degradation, but couldn't do that because Cliff needed to be alive when the disease started and needed to be in his 20s or 30s to be an eligible VN bachelor. I feel like the reason we don't see ruins or debris is to set up the sudden reveal with Cliff not realizing he was hiding behind a chimney. The reason the vestipository isn't set up like a normal landfill with multiple layers filling a hole in the ground is because Cliff needs to tiptoe between the piles on solid ground, and so on. I think there are ways you could've combined these details to make the scene flow more smoothly. Instead of having Cliff tiptoe between the clothing, have him climb on rubble piles to avoid contact that way you set up the reveal that Cliff was using the remains of a former town. (and yes, that may be morbid in a way. I also live in SoCal. But if you're going to include that plot point you might as well use it.) I'm not saying you didn't consider any of these things when writing the story, but rather just how the details came across as a reader.

Regarding the other points you made, I wouldn't say the story comes across as anti-clothing so much as pro-nudity, but certainly not pro-clothing. Regardless of how unconvincing Devon's arguments were, that's still the conclusion that Cliff also reaches, and the line about latest fashions did come across as bitter. Kinda got at this towards the end of my original comment as well, but I'm not sure the message lands as intended either since the "understanding" is so superficial.